Aphrodite Made Me Do It Read online

  PRAISE FOR TRISTA MATEER

  “Aphrodite Made Me Do It is a gentle scream from outside of your window. It is a reminder that it’s okay to let the light come in, but only when you are ready. You will find grace between these pages and a little sadness, too - the kind that makes flowers grow in all of the places you need them most.”

  — Wilder, author of Nocturnal

  “Aphrodite Made Me Do It is a dazzling portal of a collection. Trista Mateer erupts with spells of thunder and then gifts you with a careful platter of language to cast them yourself.”

  — Blythe Baird, author of If My Body Could Speak

  “Trista Mateer’s work has the kind of sumptuous quality that leaves you breathless. Aphrodite Made Me Do It is an incredible offering from a truly valuable poetic voice that channels love as the ancient and powerful emotion that it is. Combined with the poet’s own art, this book is a vibrant labyrinth, a treat for every reader. Mateer is magnificent as always.”

  — Nikita Gill, author of Fierce Fairytales

  Winner - 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards — Poetry (The Dogs I Have Kissed)

  “Gut truths and gin-clear imagery, Trista Mateer reminds us of all those places left unexplored by language.” (Honeybee)

  — Foreword Reviews

  “This is a collection that will beg you to be dog-eared, coffee-stained, and shared.” (Honeybee)

  — Amanda Lovelace, author of the princess saves herself in this one

  “Trista writes about love so honestly. It’s messy, reckless hope. It’s sticky-fingered stubbornness. This collection is a must-read for any queer femme, and for anyone who has ever lost themselves in a feverish want.” (Honeybee)

  — Clementine von Radics, author of Mouthful of Forevers

  Copyright © 2019 Trista Mateer

  Cover and internal design: Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

  Cover Artwork: Lauren Zaknoun

  Interior Artwork: Trista Mateer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

  www.centralavenuepublishing.com

  APHRODITE MADE ME DO IT

  978-1-77168-174-2 (pbk)

  978-1-77168-175-9 (epub)

  978-1-77168-176-6 (mobi)

  Published in Canada

  Printed in United States of America

  1. POETRY / Women Authors 2. POETRY / Subject & Themes - General

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  for you,

  and the story you deserve

  TRIGGERS

  body image

  sexual assault

  rape

  eating disorders

  queerphobia

  emotional abuse

  physical abuse

  gore

  blood

  death

  fire

  and possibly more

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Aphrodite Airs Her Grievances

  The Poet Airs Her Grievances

  Aphrodite Speaks on Love

  The Poet Speaks on Love

  Aphrodite Sings of War

  The Poet Sings of War

  Rising

  INTRODUCTION

  I watched my mother lie for love

  when it stomped through the house and

  put its fists through our walls.

  I watched her bleed for it and

  lie more.

  I told myself I’d never wear thin for it.

  I’d never break for it.

  And then I did.

  I was human.

  Small and predictable.

  Bad love wanted a sacrifice,

  so I made myself one.

  I drank it straight from the tap,

  wiped my mouth on my palms,

  picked up a pen,

  and called myself a poet.

  The thing about embracing your own chaos

  is that it never becomes clear

  when you need to

  stop.

  I didn’t forget how to fight for myself.

  I forgot that I could.

  THE DREAM GOES LIKE THIS

  I’m on the verge of sleep, and then I’m not. I’m standing in a concrete room and my whole body feels like it’s vibrating. A neon sign blinks on somewhere behind me with that distinctive sort of plinking and buzzing. The sign stretches nearly floor to ceiling with glowing, white letters that spell out the words: WHAT DO YOU NEED? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? It looks like an art installation at a gallery somewhere, like there should be sculptures and people milling about. Instead, there’s only me and the buzzing and the vibrating and water at the center of everything.

  Square and constructed of individual stones instead of concrete like everything else, a well sits in the middle of the room. When I walk over and gaze into it, it’s like I’m looking down at the ocean from the window of a plane. Everything is teal and coral and gold. Then I see the scallop shell and the figure towering out of it. She rises out of the sea, into the sky, closer and closer until I back away and she crawls out of the well like some horrifying truth. She sits on the edge of the well with her feet hanging down toward the water she came from, and she looks at me curiously. Her whole body burns with light. She says, “What do you need? What are you looking for?”

  I understand who she’s supposed to be. I just don’t think I need anything she has to offer. I say, “I’m sorry. I’m not looking for love. I must be in the wrong place.”

  When she laughs,

  the sound of it

  swallows

  my whole world.

  APHRODITE AIRS HER GRIEVANCES

  I was worshipped on the battlefield once.

  They brought me blood

  before they brought me perfume.

  They started wars in my name.

  After a little time, men did what they always do. They didn’t try to understand, they tried to explain.

  They made me earthly. They branded me woman. Then they saw things in me that didn’t mesh well with woman. They saw parts of me they didn’t understand and they broke them off. They called me a hundred different names, an epithet for everything. Couldn’t even bother trying to comprehend it all together—that I could be bloody and beautiful, that I could be divine and approachable. Men wrote the stories of my birth as if they were standing on the shore when I was spat up onto it. They picked up their pens and waxed poetic and nobody questioned it. Nobody asked me instead.

  I am older than the poets and

  I am older than the pens.

  I am older than the stars

  and the ocean I crawled out of.

  They called me Gravedigger. Shining Queen of the Underworld. Aphrodite the Unholy. I had glorious names before they called me anything sweet. Before they started calling me smile-loving, shapely Aphrodite. They took my name and dragged it through the mud kindly. They catcalled me until people couldn’t separate my name from sex. They made me a goddess of love and then vilified me for loving freely, for kissing and fucking and strolling boldly down the streets of Cyprus. They married me off in the stories so they could call me Adulteress, but I brought the god of war to his knees.

  I belong to no one. They never wrote that part down.

  The church

  turne
d me into

  a symbol of lust.

  Called the apples

  in my cheeks

  sinful.

  Said

  heaven

  would spit

  my body back out

  because it had

  no place there.

  I never needed

  anyone else

  to make a place

  for me.

  I have run naked

  through Eden.

  I have chased

  the universe

  to its end.

  They whittled me down

  one piece at a time.

  They took my anger.

  They took my voice.

  They took my story.

  They colored me pink and wrapped me in floral. They scrubbed the dirt from under my nails. They wanted you to believe that love is weak, that you cannot curse and kiss with the same mouth. They wanted you to believe that the root of love is romance, soft and wide-eyed. See what they did to my stories? My temples? My statues? Regardless of whether you desire it, love is what sits at the core of the world. It is stronger than greed and hate and jealousy and pain. What brings us together will always be more powerful than what keeps us apart.

  I am deathless.

  I will have no eulogy.

  I will have no mourners.

  Mine is the mouth

  that fueled creation.

  Mine is the hand

  that wields the blade

  and I will never let you

  forget it again.

  THE POET AIRS HER GRIEVANCES

  I knew love could draw blood

  and I still never went into it

  with bandages in mind.

  I went into it with ink.

  I wrote my own story

  and still said all the wrong things.

  I’m afraid to ask for what I need. I’m afraid of my survival seeming selfish. I’m afraid of my mental illnesses. I’m afraid of my sadness. I’m afraid of my anger. I’m afraid of the things that I want. I’m afraid of what people will think of the things that I want. I’m afraid of what people think. I’m afraid of my voice. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. I’m afraid of saying the right thing. I’m afraid of not knowing what the right thing is. I’m afraid of taking up space. I’m afraid of public transit. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of what men have done to me in the dark. I’m afraid of cisgender white men. I’m afraid of saying not all men and then having my face held down in the dirt by another man. I’m afraid of sex. I’m afraid of never getting over my trauma. I’m afraid of putting things down. I’m afraid of letting things go. I’m afraid of the emotional abuse I knowingly allowed myself to endure. I’m afraid of what I will let myself go through for love. I’m afraid of global warming. I’m afraid of being queer in public. I’m afraid of kissing someone in front of my mother. I’m afraid of not unlearning the bad things my parents taught me. I’m afraid of having children. I’m afraid of living alone. I’m afraid of checking my bank account. I’m afraid of wearing shorts in public. I’m afraid of driving. I’m afraid of driving and wanting to crash on purpose. I’m afraid of going to the doctor. I’m afraid of a doctor telling me to lose weight instead of listening to my concerns. I’m afraid of chest pains. I’m afraid of panic attacks. I’m afraid of not having health insurance. I’m afraid of moving away from home. I’m afraid of staying at home. I’m afraid of never loving someone as much as I loved the last person who broke my heart. I’m afraid of never being understood. I’m afraid of being understood. I’m afraid of forgiving too easily. I’m afraid of losing touch with my brother. I’m afraid of love. I’m afraid of other things.

  My soft body

  was a crime

  in my mother’s house.

  I still don’t know how to love a thing

  even my mother is ashamed to look at,

  but sometimes I grow out all my wild

  just to sit alone with it in the dark.

  When I say I’m not looking for love, what I mean is:

  I don’t like losing the part of myself that disappears when I date other people / I don’t know how to let another person touch me anymore / I’m okay with my body when I’m the only one looking at it / I don’t know enough about healing / I had to step back for a while to get to know myself again but now I don’t know how to step forward / I worry it’s safer to sleep alone / how can I possibly love someone right when I was raised with the worst examples?

  STILL

  I drew the tarot

  cards. I made the rose

  water. I sat out under the

  moon. I put on my grandmother’s

  perfume. I crushed petals in the palm

  of my hand. I split a pomegranate

  in half and let the seeds spill onto

  my dresser. I pressed some

  to my tongue. And I sat the

  rest out for her.

  Aphrodite notes the romance novels piled by my bedside, their tattered covers and their dog-eared pages. She says, “I thought you weren’t looking for love.”

  I say, “That doesn’t mean I’m not hoping it will find me.”

  I say, “Isn’t everyone looking for love?”

  She pauses for a long moment before she says, plainly, “No.”

  APHRODITE SPEAKS ON LOVE

  In the stories,

  I cursed out of boredom.

  I killed over jealousy.

  I started wars for beauty.

  In the stories,

  I was given agency

  only when my actions

  would make me seem

  spiteful and shallow.

  They fabricated stories of my deeds

  until people didn’t know whether to

  worship or fear me. They said I

  was to blame for things that had

  nothing to do with me.

  I live with one version of history.

  Everyone else lives with another.

  No matter what the stories say, he was mine. Adonis, the one who chose me still, after seeing me for what I was. He was mine. Bled to death in my arms and he was mine. I felt grief for the first time and I taught the world to mourn with me. I taught them how to howl with pain. Just like I did. Like I still do. You’d think time would make me forget, but everything is written down. There is no forgetting.

  It was my blood that made the roses red.

  Did they tell you that?

  My pain shaped the whole world.

  Some people treat lost loves like stars, like guiding lights in the dark. You can spend your whole life following the past around if you really want to. My sister never did let a single thing go. It’s true, she put Orion’s body in the sky when he died. Now she sleeps under its light forever. It sounds romantic but her heart is so sore.

  I treat my greatest loves

  like seeds.

  When I’m ready,

  I put them down

  and I seldom look back

  at what has grown

  behind me.

  I keep my eyes

  trained ahead.

  There is always

  more ground

  to cover.

  I spent

  so much time

  with Venus

  that our stories

  tangled

  like legs

  in bedsheets.

  People forgot

  the difference

  between my life

  and hers.

  Things are just

  like that

  sometimes.

  Love knows no face.

  Love knows no gender.

  Love knows no sexuality.

  Love knows only love.

  We waste so much time

  trying to explain ourselves.

  We thrive best

  like gardens,

  not singular plants

  in lonely pots.

  When people say you cannot love others until you love yourself
, they fundamentally misunderstand love. Nothing thrives in isolation.

  But you must

  do the work

  to make yourself ready

  to love others

  well.

  No one else

  can be responsible

  for your healing.

  MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS ON LOVE

  love that doesn’t last is still important / not everyone is meant to stay forever / love teaches lessons / love is more than the lessons it teaches / it does not have to be heavy / it does not have to be requited to be worthwhile / no one owes you their time or their affection / cherish your friends and the family you find with them / love has little to do with blood relations / and more to do with who you choose to bleed for / it’s okay to walk away from things that don’t feel right / your love will not always look like everyone else’s / you will not always grow it the same way / you will not always express it the same way / people can love each other and still be bad for each other / people can love each other and still be incompatible / love never means you have to stay / it means your heart is open / fight to keep it that way

  It is simple. You believe in the triumphs of love despite growing up in full view of its defeat because you are brave.

  THE POET SPEAKS ON LOVE

  QUEER GIRL OVERTURE

  I have this dream where I am not afraid to hold your hand in Texas. This dream where I don’t have a visceral reaction to seeing gay pride flags. This dream where I can invite you home for Christmas dinner and my mother is so kind to you. And she asks where you went to school and she doesn’t choke on your gender identity and she pulls me aside later to tell me how sweet you are. I have this dream where people on the internet stop changing the pronouns in my poetry. I have this dream where I know exactly what to say when my Southern Baptist relatives ask if I’m dating someone. I have this dream where I don’t have to keep coming out over and over. Where people don’t think my sexuality is a phase unless I can produce a girlfriend on command. Where people stop asking me who fucks better, men or women. Like those are the only options. Like the answer wouldn’t be a gross generalization. I have this dream where people aren’t always waiting to say, “maybe you haven’t found the right guy.” Where I don’t imagine them jumping out from behind doors and bushes and shower curtains to say, “I hope you get over this in time to have children of your own.” I have this dream where all of my queer representation isn’t murdered on TV. I have this dream where my queer friends aren’t murdered on the news. I have this dream where I feel safe. In rural Kansas. At my grandparents’ house. In a gay bar. At Pride. I have this dream where I only write you love poems and none of them have to say, “I’m so glad we’re alive.”